


Appreciating Beauty

by Inell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Heterosexual Sex, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Erotic Couplings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-21
Updated: 2006-07-21
Packaged: 2018-10-26 16:32:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10790388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inell/pseuds/Inell
Summary: Cedric has an appreciation for beauty





	Appreciating Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: For [](http://needtofindmysef.livejournal.com/profile)[**needtofindmysef**](http://needtofindmysef.livejournal.com/) based on [this](http://www.deviantart.com/view/20891987/) image and request for AU Cedric/Hermione. Happy holidays, hon!  


* * *

He likes to watch her sleep.

He will usually try to wake up in the morning before her so he can watch her. It’s one of the only times he really feels free to just _look_ without making her feel uncomfortable. She isn’t fond of being stared at, even by him, and he respects that even if he thinks it’s rather silly.

To him, she’s beautiful.

He remembers the first time they made love as he looks at her. She had blushed and put on these thick pajamas afterward. She’d chided him for simply lying beneath the sweaty sheets naked and hadn’t wanted to lie there nude at all, seeming a bit uncomfortable about her nudeness even as she appreciated his. He thinks he fell in love with her that night because she could still blush after scratching his back and biting his shoulder while urging him to make her come.

It wasn’t until they’d made love at least a dozen times (he’d not really counted, even if he had noticed) before she’d worn a pretty nightgown instead of scratchy pajamas. The nightgown was long and covered her nearly as well as the pajamas but there was a glimpse of breasts and it left her collarbone and shoulders bare save for two little strappy things. He could feel her warmth through the nightgown and rather liked the feel of silk against his skin.

He can remember when she stopped wearing the nightgown. He asked her to move in with him, into his small flat not far from the Ministry with a leaky kitchen faucet and a toilet that was rather finicky on whether it would work the first time or take another turn. Much to his surprise, she agreed and it was a tired weekend of moving and unpacking until her things mixed with his things. That night, she’d worn one of his undershirts and her knickers. That’s when he knew he wanted to be with her in a forever after sappy sort of way.

Five months later and she still wears one of his shirts and knickers that have grown increasingly skimpier as she becomes more confident. He has no complaints. He loves to look at her and thinks she’s the sexiest woman he’s ever met. She knows he watches her sleep. She’s woken and caught him a few times. At first, she’d been a bit embarrassed for some reason that probably only made since to girls but now she just rolled her eyes or gave him a kiss, depending on how she felt when she woke up. He much prefers the kiss.

When she sleeps, he touches her gently. Never anything sexual because that’s sort of creepy. Well, not very often. Sometimes creepy can be a bit sexy, especially when he can wake her up with his tongue against her knickers or his erection against her hip. He doesn’t do that often, though; no more than she’ll occasionally wake him up with her mouth around his cock or her wet heat rubbing against him. He likes waking up like that.

No, he touches her gently and remembers how lucky he is to be alive, to be lying there like that with her. He remembers a flash of green and pain against his head as he falls back to avoid the curse. He remembers waking days later in the hospital ward with his father crying beside his bed and his mind foggy. He remembers how close, how very close, he came to dying one dark night in an old cemetery and can’t imagine never having the chance to speak to her, to flirt with her, to charm her, to seduce her, to love her.

She’s still a challenge. The first time he really noticed her was his last year at school. She was a prefect and they patrolled together. It was on those nights that he began to see Hermione Granger as someone special and not just Harry Potter’s best friend or one of the smartest witches at Hogwarts. He noticed that she was beautiful in an understated most blokes don’t even notice sort of way, smart and funny, sarcastic, loyal, cunning, and probably too nice to many who didn’t really deserve it. She was also stubborn, opinionated, infuriating, and he’d had no idea what to say or do to get her to notice him.

She intrigued him, still does, and he’d been disappointed when the year ended before he’d had the opportunity to do more than flirt and receive eye rolls or snorts of disbelief. Well, there was the time in the hospital after she’d nearly gotten herself killed when he’d stopped by and she was bored enough that she actually kept him there talking until dinner. When he’d flirted after that, she’d blushed and scolded him for playing around.

It had been another five years before he’d had a chance. A war was fought and won, rebuilding had begun, and she’d had a brief relationship with Weasley before he ran into her at the Ministry one day when he’d visited his father. This time when he’d flirted, sliding so easily into the routine of before, she’d looked at him closely…and flirted back.

He looks at her now as she sleeps and gently moves his fingertips along the curve of her hip. Her shirt has ridden up as she slept so he can see her belly, which really is far too tempting. He likes her belly button and can’t resist letting his finger brush inside it as he caresses and enjoys the feel of her warm skin.

He likes his shirts on her and has actually been buying some a couple of sizes too small because he loves the way the white cotton fabric looks when it’s snug across her breasts. She hasn’t figured that out yet. Or, if she has, she’s not said anything to him about the fact his shirts have gotten smaller. She sleeps in a position that he can’t help but feel would be uncomfortable (on her back and her side all twisted into a gorgeous tableau for his viewing pleasure) and she always drools just a little when she’s in a deep sleep.

The soft hair on her upper outer legs tickles his fingers as traces the curve of her hip and swell of her arse. He likes her breasts. They’re a near perfect fit for his hand and she has the loveliest nipples, very sensitive and dark against the white of his shirts. He likes her lips. A bit thin and usually chapped, but she has a bottom lip that is somewhat plump and perfect for nipping. He likes her collarbone and the fact that wet kisses placed along it will make her moan.

He loves her hair. Wild and unruly, it always reminds him of her. It can’t be anymore controlled than she can be. He loves to see it spread out on the pillow or tangled around his hand or falling past her shoulders or wrapped around her quill when she’s working. He likes her hands, small but strong. He likes the way her fingers often have ink stains and the fingernails that are only polished if they’re going out somewhere really nice and he paints them for her because she’s pants at doing it herself. He likes her feet and the way she’s ticklish on the bottom and will always giggle in an entirely un-Hermione like way when he paints her toenails and lets his knuckles ‘accidentally’ brush across the soles of her feet.

“Cedric, why are you touching my toes?” she asks in a sleepy but curious voice as she stretches and rolls onto her back.

“They’re cute,” he tells her with his most charming ‘can we shag this morning?’ smile as he looks up at her. He crawls up to lie against her side and brushes a kiss against her jaw. “I’ve decided that I love every part of you.”

“You’re crazy,” she accuses with a grin as she presses her leg against him. “ _That’s_ from looking at my toes?”

“No, Miss Granger. This,” he pushes his erection against her, “is from looking at you. And I’m not crazy.”

“It’s too early in the morning to debate the question of your sanity, Mister Diggory,” she replies as her hand languidly moves down his chest.

“Is it too early for other things?” he asks lazily as he touches her belly and moves his fingers along the waist of her knickers.

She pushes a lock of dark hair from his forehead and smiles. “Perhaps. Perhaps not,” she declares in a ‘you’re not getting into my knickers that easy, mister’ voice.

“Need I remind you that I was a Hufflepuff, Hermione? We’re very persistent when there’s something we want,” he tells her in his best ‘I’m so going to make you scream and beg’ voice.

A wicked smile crosses her lips. “Tenacity can occasionally be a good trait,” she says as she stretches like a feline and thrusts her breasts up as she arches her back. She is more awake now and is definitely in a playful mood, two things that have his cock quite happy. “You were watching me sleep again, weren’t you? While you were molesting my toes and hips?”

“Molesting is such an awful term,” he says as he moves his hand beneath the white cotton shirt she’s wearing. “I prefer the term appreciating beauty as that’s surely what I was doing.”

“Oh,” she gasps as his hand squeezes her breast. He moves his leg over hers so he’s able to press against her knickers, which he discovers are becoming damp. “Perhaps you should, uh, God, Cedric, you should---“

“Yes, Hermione?” he asks innocently as he begins to rub himself more firmly against her hip. He smirks when she moans and tugs at her nipple. “Perhaps I should what?”

“Prat,” she accuses even as she smiles and brushes her fingers through his hair. “Perhaps you should _appreciate my beauty_ a little while longer? Then we’ll discuss that shag.”

“Whatever you say, Hermione,” he replies as he lowers his head and kisses her.  



End file.
